Fat Man and Little Boy

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Fat Man and Little Boy
original movie poster
Directed by	Roland Joffe
Produced by	Tony Garnett
Written by	Roland Joffe Bruce Robinson
Starring	Paul Newman Dwight Schultz Bonnie Bedelia John Cusack Laura Dern John C. McGinley
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Vilmos Zsigmond
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	October 20, 1989
Running time	127 min
Language	English
Gross revenue	$3,563,162

Fat Man and Little Boy (a.k.a. Shadow Makers in the UK) is a 1989 film that reenacts the Manhattan Project, the secret Allied endeavor to develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. The film is named after the nuclear weapons known by the code names "Fat Man" and "Little Boy", and also potentially as a reference to the portly Gen. Leslie R. Groves and the seemingly much younger Robert Oppenheimer, the respective military and scientific heads of the project, who dominate the film.

The film was directed by Roland Joffe and written by Joffe and Bruce Robinson.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Basis 3 Production 4 Cast 5 Response 6 Notes 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

In the midst of World War II, in September 1942, U.S Army General Leslie Groves (Paul Newman) is given the assignment to beat the Germans in building an atomic bomb as the head of the ultra-secret Manhattan Project. Groves soon hires physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz) to run the laboratory in charge of the scientists involved in the project. General Groves is a career military man working inside the Pentagon, and highly qualified to lead a top-secret weapons project. Professor Oppenheimer has been an upcoming star among the physics department at the prestigious University of California, Berkeley. The different personalities of the military man Groves and the scientist Oppenheimer often clash in keeping the project on track. Oppenheimer in turn clashes with the other scientists, who debate whether their personal consciences should enter into the project or whether they should remain purely researchers without personal feelings.

Oppenheimer, who had fallen in love with northern New Mexico as a boy when his family had owned a cabin there, picks a remote location on top of a mesa adjacent to a valley called Los Alamos Canyon, northwest of Santa Fe, as the site for the new research facility.

Nurse Kathleen Robinson (Laura Dern) and the young physicist Michael Merriman (John Cusack) question what they are doing. Working with few protections from radiation during an experiment, Michael drops a radioactive component during an experiment dubbed Tickling the Dragon's Tail and retrieves it by hand in order to avoid disaster, but is exposed to a terminal dose of radiation. In the base hospital nurse Kathleen can only watch as he develops massive swelling and deformation before dying a miserable death days later.

While the technical problems are being solved, military investigations are undertaken in order to thwart foreign espionage, especially from 'communist sympathizers' who might be associated with socialist organizations. The snooping reveals that Oppenheimer has had a young mistress, Jean Tatlock (Natasha Richardson), and he is ordered by the military to stop seeing her. After he breaks off their relationship without being able to reveal the secret reasons why, she is unable to cope with the heartache and is later found dead.

As the project continues in multiple sites across America, technical problems and delays cause tensions and strife. To avoid a single-point-of-failure plan, two separate bomb designs are implemented: a large, heavy plutonium bomb imploded using shaped charges ("Fat Man"), and an alternate design for a thin, less heavy uranium bomb triggered in a shotgun design ("Little Boy"). The bomb development culminates in a live detonation in south-central New Mexico at the Trinity Site in the Alamogordo Desert (05:29:45 on July 16, 1945), where everyone watches in awe at the spectacle of the first mushroom cloud with roaring winds, miles away.

In the end, both Fat Man and Little Boy were successful. Finally, despite ruining the lives of many separate individuals, mankind developed technologies capable of threatening all life on Earth.

[edit] Basis

Most of the characters were real people and most of the events real happenings, with some theatrical license used in the film.

The character of Michael Merriman (John Cusack) is a fictional composite of several people and is put into the film to provide a moral compass as the "common man".^[1] Part of the character is loosely based on the popular young scientist Louis Slotin. Contrary to Merriman's death in the movie, Slotin's accident and death occurred after the dropping of the two bombs on Japan, and his early death was feared by some as karma after the event; see their respective articles.^[2]

Even before Oppenheimer was chosen to be the lead scientist of the Manhattan Project, he was under surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and once selected, the surveillance was intense; every single phone call was recorded and every contact with another person noted. After he was picked to head the laboratory, he only met with Tatlock one time, in mid-June 1943, where she told him that she still loved him and wanted to be with him.^[3] After spending that night together, he never saw her again. She committed suicide six months after their meeting.^[4]

[edit] Production

Filming took place in the fall of 1988 mainly outside Durango, Durango, Mexico, where the Los Alamos research facility was re-created. The re-creation of the Los Alamos laboratory entailed 35 buildings and cost over $2 million to construct in 1988.^[5]

[edit] Cast

The following are the cast members and their roles:

• Paul Newman — Gen. Leslie R. Groves
• Dwight Schultz — J. Robert Oppenheimer
• Bonnie Bedelia — Kitty Oppenheimer
• John Cusack — Michael Merriman
• Laura Dern — Kathleen Robinson
• Todd Field — Robert Rathbun Wilson
• Ron Frazier — Peter de Silva
• John C. McGinley — Capt. Richard Schoenfield, MD
• Natasha Richardson — Jean Tatlock
• Ron Vawter — Jamie Latrobe
• Michael Brockman — William 'Deke' Parsons
• Del Close — Dr. Kenneth Whiteside
• John Considine — Robert Tuckson
• Allan Corduner — Franz Goethe (as Alan Corduner)
• Joe D'Angerio — Seth Neddermeyer (as Joseph D'Angerio)
• Jon DeVries — Johnny Mount (as Jon De Vries)

[edit] Response

The highly dramatic film includes a closely aligned, romantic musical score created by long-time composer Ennio Morricone.

The film has been criticized for distortion for dramatic effect, and is also cited as an example of miscasting in its choices of Paul Newman for the role of General Groves, and Dwight Schultz for the role of Oppenheimer. The film made under $4 million on its original release.

The IMDb readers have rated the film with an average rating of 6.4/10 stars in 2,442 votes.

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Fat Man and Little Boy at the Internet Movie Database

[edit] External links

• Fat Man and Little Boy at the Internet Movie Database
• Fat Man and Little Boy at Box Office Mojo
• Fat Man and Little Boy at Rotten Tomatoes

v • d • e Films directed by Roland Joffé The Killing Fields (1984) • The Mission (1986) • Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) • City of Joy (1992) • Super Mario Bros. (uncredited, 1993) • The Scarlet Letter (1995) • Goodbye Lover (1999) • Vatel (2000) • Captivity (2007) • You and I (2007)